October 21, 2015Look Back: Back to the Future 2 — What Did Marty McFly Get Right?

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DECADE (OR TWO…) MAKES

October 21, 2015. It seemed like it would never arrive. As we sat mesmerized in the movie theaters, peering around the other viewers with their big 1980’s hair, it seemed perfectly plausible that we’d all be commuting in our flying DeLoreans by now. How young and naïve we were.

So the future is here now. Where are our hoverboards, our time machines, our household nuclear fusion generators? Well, Marty McFly and his friends did get a few things right:

GRAVITY-DEFYING TRANSPORTATION:

Hoverboards are here. OK, it’s not a hoverboard like Marty uses in the movie (or like the one Lexus unveiled recently as a publicity stunt — I guess getting just the right combination of superconductors, magnets and liquid nitrogen is still a little tricky for consumers…), but this has got to be the next best thing: It’s called an EOHawk hoverboard. Think of it as what would happen if a Segway and a skateboard had a baby.

If you’re in the San Diego area, you can pick one up at the VapeKingz kiosks at Fashion Island, Mission Valley or Plaza Bonita malls. (Tell Eddie that Steve sent you.) If you’re elsewhere, check them out on Amazon.com.

ROBOTS:

One of the whiz-bang technologies shown in the Café scene in BTTF2 is a couple of robot waiters taking orders and serving food to tables. Check out this new robot created by NXT Robotics, a San Diego-area startup, that is designed as a personal assistant for use in homes, and businesses like hospitality, corporate or campus security, etc. Company founder Jeff Debrosse has posted a video of his original Nexie robot here:

Jeff Debrosse, CEO of NXT Robotics in San Diego, shows off IRIS, the company’s flagship model.

TABLET COMPUTERS:

In the movie, they use thin tablet computers to get people to sign petitions, pay for cab rides, etc. Tablets today are commonplace, but I have two pretty cool ones to check out:

The first is the brand new Barnes & Noble Nook/Samsung Galaxy Tab S2. It’s one of the thinnest tablets ever produced, and in addition to all the things a normal tablet does, it lets you read the morning paper, or your favorite magazine, or hundreds of thousands of books, all on one device.

The second one is Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet, running Windows 10. It does anything a full-fledged laptop or desktop computer can do (like allowing me to write this blog…), all with the portability of a tablet. And there’s one more cool feature Microsoft just unveiled that harks back to the movie: You can not only do video calls on it like the McFly’s do in their futuristic home, you can also use the new translating version of Skype to hold a live video conversation with someone who speaks a different language (say Mandarin, for example).

HOME AUTOMATION:

One of the things the movie shows in 2015 is that we all have automated houses, with lots of cool built-in gizmos. Of course, the flat-screen TVs in the McFly home with picture-in-picture capability were mind-boggling at the time, but they are pretty ho-hum today. And while home automation (or “smart house” technology) exists, it’s too complex and costly for most consumers.

But check out this kit that lets people start automating their homes with something that’s both ingenious and simple as pie: These new LED light bulbs from TCP screw into any lamp or light socket in your house, just like a regular bulb, but you can control them via your mobile phone from anywhere in the world. Turn on the lights before you drive home? Or dim the lights in your dining room while you eat dim sum in Shanghai? No problem.